Igbo Women – The Accountant Generals of Every Igbo family, and Lessons from Aba Women of 1929

This morning, I opened the history books in a feed on Igbo Apprenticeship System (IAS) by Favour Okolie, and made a case that most schemes, including the IAS, in the Igbo Nation are not necessarily “insensitive” to women.  I posited that Igbo Women generally want their husbands to be stars. In other words, Igbo Women derive so much joy when their husbands are successful or as seen as successful.

Because of that, they mask their impacts, promoting their husbands. That reverence becomes evident when you see a young lady of the same age as the husband calling the man “Nna-anyi” [our lord]. When a mother tells the daughter “Di bu ugwu nwanyi” [husband is the dignity of a woman], what she is saying is clear: above all, we want you to be married. So, women are trained to see that their husbands are extremely important.

Men respond by anointing wives as “odozi aku” [who keeps and preserves wealth]. Yes, they acknowledge that until the women have determined to preserve the wealth, it is all vanity.

So, women are “hidden” but that does not mean they have no impacts or wealth in the Igbo Nation. My grandmother owned shops in Oriendu Market in Ovim. In those shops, from the garri, yam to the foodstuffs, women dominated those markets. 

Well before the British came, Igbo Women had accumulated wealth even though most were in the shadows of their husbands. But notice that when the stakes become very high, they always take over. In 1929, Aba Women made it clear to the British that some of those new unjust taxes were on women enterprises, not men. When they did not listen, they rioted. It was then the British knew the accountant generals of every Igbo family.

I have noted that some sections of Igbo Nation which saw diminished economic growth could be attributed to polygamy. Largely, polygamy deprived the men quality strategic advisory from spouses, besides the obvious burden of running large families.

Sure, the world has changed and what worked in the ancestral time may not work now. Yet, there are many lessons from the ancestral African culture.

Comment On LinkedIn:

the IAS on per capita has better results than Adam Smith capitalist’s framework. There is no framework that does not have pros and cons. All the mess in the world with inequality is as a result of the current system. Does that make all the banks, cement firms, telcos, etc in the world evil? I do not think so.

On scaling: “one of my concerns has been the scalability of this system.” – IAS is the world’s largest venture incubation system. In other words, it is WELL SCALED. TED has a video where a New York Times journalist called IAS the largest business incubation system in the world. Silicon Valley does not fund more people than what we have in Alaba, Onitsha, etc https://www.tekedia.com/nigerian-igbos-run-the-largest-business-incubation-system-in-the-world-ted-video/.

“Since the major fuel of this system is the communism of the Igbo people, have you thought of how it is possible to scale this model in cultures that do not sustain such levels of communism ?” – IAS is not communism.

On Gender: IAS is magical because the partners are super-competitive. Igbo boys compete even as they cooperate. If you do not hustle well, you go back to village. Go to Alaba and see young men walk round the whole market 20 times in a day to make sure they can take you to a shop to buy something, making sure that money is spent. He does not have the goods but he wants his brother to make sales. That is a new dimension of co-opetition.

“Also concerning the gender sensitivity,” – you may not believe this, IAS works for women. The problem is simple: Igbo women are generally partners to their husbands, giving men most of the credit. Women run petty trading in all Igbo markets in villages and those women mentor young women to take over. Go back to your village to buy garri, it is likely that 90% of sellers are women. Go to foodstuffs, etc.

The Aba Women of 1929 will remind that Igbo Women owned wealth and influence. The British got the message and removed the tax. It is only in Igbo that a wife will call the husband “Nna anyi” [our lord” in reverence . Why? Did bu ugwu nwanyi [husband is the honor of a woman]. With that, they mask their impacts, giving men all glory. Sure, this is not to say that IAS cannot be improved.

Comment on LinkedIn Feed

Comment 1:Ndubuisi Ekekwe, thank you for sharing this tribute for our women. May I add that the costume worn by the women in the picture were made by them (women). So indeed “she seeketh wool, and flax, and worketh willingly with her hands” (Proverbs 31:13).

In my native Akwete in Abia State of Nigeria, neither the women nor their vocation have ever been “hidden”. They are world renowned actually. Indeed the women invented and do control the local fabric industry there. The men only assist under the direction of the women; without ever having to feel descriminated upon, “second fiddle”, “inferior” etc. Much the same way that the women never thought to be “unequal” with men because they don’t do palm wine tapping. In short climbing the palm-wine tree, or the art of timber felling is considered rather undignified for our beautiful women!

So such is the traditional socioeconomic system in my village. It’s based on clear cut unwritten roles, responsibility and accountability assignment, respecting the unique and relative strengths of demographic groups.

Comment 2: The title Ori aku and odosi aku, is an affirmation that you wife is co-owner of your wealth and she has the sole responsibility of being the accountant general of every wealth in your possession.
We from this part of the world, we all know that our women are born hustlers, it’s just recently that Igbo women started doing slay queen, women own multiple shops and dominates almost all the markets especially food and groceries market even till today.

Men are allowed to do Igba-boi due to the tough process and number of years involved to serve a Master.
As a father I will not be too happy to send my daughter out like that to go and serve somebody for 5 to 7 years, that is not insensitivity. Some of our women are empowered to learn fashion designing and other soft trade.

We are not also saying that the men deserve to suffer but the system is designed to forge the man through long suffering and make him learn loyalty and craftsmanship and be useful to the family and provide for his own immediate family incase the wife decides not to stress her life hustling. Are you going to force your wife if she says she is not interested in hustling. You must provide for her every pin she needs without complain that’s how we roll in Igbo land.

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